Saxon

by Stuart Davies

One hour ahead of the UK, Fabio Gerard stirred as the alarm sounded. Now he was sorry, as he’d known all along he would be, for the extra hour across the road at the Buddha Bar the night before. He forced himself out of bed.

  Fabio did an hour every morning in the gym and then thirty minutes in the pool. He was very motivated. His thirty-fifth birthday was coming up next month. Fabio was anticipating a chorus of ‘No, you can’t possibly be!’ and ‘Oh, I would never have guessed!’ from the guests at the surprise party Kris would no doubt be throwing for him over in London. He was going to be gorgeous. Failure was not an option.

  By 7.00AM, in this city of late risers, he was ready for his breakfast and the early-morning news. Fabio liked to get a good start on the day.

  Monday, May 6, 29 St Nicholas Lane, Sewel Mill, 8.55AM

  Nothing much happened in Sewel Mill, not on the surface anyway. It was the quintessential English village, perhaps slightly prettier than most. With its picturesque streets and very long history, Sewel Mill enjoyed quite a good tourist business, so people went to some trouble with their hanging baskets and window boxes. There was unspoken – but very strong – peer pressure to ensure that even the folk without particularly green fingers didn’t let the side down.

  As you would expect with these bastions of rural tradition, village life could be relied on. The summer would guarantee a fete, including the usual flower show, and maybe a cricket match every weekend. Autumn and spring would be occasions for jumble sales in the village hall. Bonfire Night in particular was an occasion not to be missed in Sewel Mill. And all year round there would be a host of activities organised by the WI for the nonworking wives, retired ladies and, occasionally, any surviving husbands, unless the latter could get out of it somehow.

  People went about their business and were pleasant to each other in an English sort of way. Outwardly, at least, they kept themselves to themselves. But not much happened in the neighbourhood without it being noticed by someone or other, who in turn felt duty bound to pass it on to another someone. Inferences were made and characters defined, based on the slightest information. Memories were long; grudges were nursed – embellished even – for decades. If you lived there for at least forty years and you were liked, you might begin to be accepted as a local. Maybe.

  One of the oldest residents of Sewel Mill, Mrs Edie Hayward, was just stepping out of her little house. She was one of those locals who did the accepting. Or not, as the case may be. One of her favourite tactics was to be deceptively helpful. If Mrs Hayward judged a new arrival to have acceptance potential, she would offer her services as a cleaner.

  She could turn her hand to bit of light vacuuming and a quick whip round with a duster. Not because she needed the money, you understand. What better way to know what was going on in the village than to wander freely around people’s homes – and be paid for your trouble?

  Mrs Hayward was no fool. She never had been. She had decided as a young girl that if she wanted to lead a comfortable life, she needed to be a reasonably large fish in a relatively small village pond.

  Edie Coomber married Cecil Hayward a week after her eighteenth birthday, when he was twenty-one. He had found her girlish charm and naivety irresistible, just as she had intended he should. He couldn’t wait to look after her. Even when she had chosen the date, rehearsed him in what he had to say to her father, and made all the other decisions, he just put this down to romantic enthusiasm.

  Just as a politician might salivate over a safe seat, Edie was certain that Cecil would deliver the goods. She was confident from the outset that he would be a success as a small local businessman. And she had been proved right. He had done well.

  Another factor in her decision-making, when selecting a mate, was that she felt secure in the knowledge that she would never lose him to another woman, and that he would be around to provide for her forever. In the charisma queue of life, Cecil had been way back with the stragglers. Edie had no problem with that. It wasn’t on her list of criteria and she could live without charisma. Who needed it? Whereas a steady income and an obedient spouse were right up there at numbers one and two.

  Mr Hayward was already pottering about in his shed as his wife left the house. He had relinquished the trousers quite soon after their wedding nuptials. Actually, the wedding cake was still crumbling moistly on a plate at the wedding feast when the realisation hit him that some battles are best not fought. Cecil knew that even if he had thought he might win from time to time, victory might come at too great a cost. Why not just go with the flow?

  When he had worked, he put in long hours, mainly for a bit of peace and quiet. Then, when retirement finally ambushed him, he spent most of his time either in the garden or tinkering away at one of his many hobbies. Preferably in the shed, and well out of range. He knew she never went into the shed – there he could do just as he pleased.

  Mrs Hayward had a very busy day ahead. First in her diary were a couple of hours shampooing Christopher Janson’s sitting-room carpet. Janson was another of the elder mafia of Sewel Mill and the two usually found time to exchange a little news over a cup of coffee during the course of the morning. Mrs Hayward was looking forward to it.

  Then she was due at the WI for lunch and had promised Babs Jenner a couple of hours ironing at 3.00PM or thereabouts.

  She looked up at the sky. It was going to be a fine day. The walk to Janson’s cottage from her house lasted less than ten minutes, but it was like a journey back in time through a medieval village. The main street had barely changed in the last five hundred years and some properties were even older than that. Film production companies occasionally used it. All they had to do to create a bygone era was to paint over the yellow lines and spread a little straw and horse muck on the road and – cue the action.

  Monday, May 6, Kemp Town, Brighton, 8.55AM

  Steve Tucker turned over in bed. He farted. He looked at the clock through narrowed eyes. With flexitime, he could afford another five minutes and still be on time for work, provided he put off his shower for another day. No contest.

  Monday, May 6, Angel Cottage, Sewel Mill, 9.00AM

  No cameras and lights today. Some of the pavements were brick and it had rained a bit the night before, making them very slippery, so Mrs Hayward had taken her time, treading carefully. The stories she had heard (and often repeated herself) of people of her age falling and fracturing a hip, and never leaving hospital again – except in a wooden box – made her cautious. The church clock struck nine as Mrs Hayward knocked on Janson’s front door. No response. She waited. She knocked again, harder. Maybe he was in the bath or still asleep, but that would be out of character. He was always up and about early, always ready when she arrived. She decided to try the back door. It too was locked.

  ‘Christopher, it’s Edie,’ she called up to his bedroom window. Mrs Hayward was not a patient woman; she had things to do. If Janson were still in bed, it would be the first time. But she would work around him unless he sent her away. She knew that the spare key was in the lean-to shed at the side of the cottage. Within a minute of finding it, she was filling a bucket with steaming hot water in the kitchen sink. She read the instructions on the plastic bottle of carpet cleaner, just to make sure nothing had changed from the last time she used it. Satisfied that it hadn’t, she turned the water to cold. Mustn’t have it too hot.

  Monday, May 6, 47 Chudleigh Drive, Cheltenham, 8.55AM

  Anna Janson thought of her husband. Today was their wedding anniversary, but the thought no longer made her weep. They had been married forty years ago, but it hadn’t taken her long to realise that he was, as she subsequently put it to a close friend, ‘Flying with a different squadron.’

  ‘The signs had always been there, Emily,’ she had sighed, over thirty years ago, as the two of them put Anna’s belongings into packing cases at Angel Cottage, ‘but I suppose I ignored them.’

  Emily had nodded sympathetically. ‘Well, he might’ve grown out of it, you know. Some chaps do,’ she had offer
ed.

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ Anna had said, with relief.

  But she had been wrong to think that, as had Emily, because he never did grow out of it. The marriage eventually ended after eight years with relief on both sides.

  Anna had moved up to Cheltenham, to be near her sister, glad to be out of the village where everyone had known of the circumstances of her sad little divorce. While they were kind to her, she certainly didn’t need to be reminded daily of the failed marriage. And she couldn’t quite escape the feeling that there were those in the village who thought she hadn’t come up to scratch as a wife, and that it was at least in part her fault that Janson was the way he was.

  She didn’t miss Sewel Mill at all.

  Monday, May 6, Angel Cottage, Sewel Mill, 9.10AM

  Mrs Hayward was aware of Janson’s marriage in the dim and distant past. These days most people in Sewel Mill either didn’t notice anything odd about Janson’s behaviour or didn’t care. His walk had a very slight mince, and the male-to-male eye contact lingered just that bit too long for the comfort of some of his acquaintances. None of this mattered a jot to Mrs Hayward – she liked him. He was undemanding and easy to look after. In addition, she thoroughly enjoyed their little chats. Some might have called it gossip but she and Janson never thought of it that way.

  While the bucket filled, she put her head out into the hall. Still no sound of life. She stopped by the mirror and glanced at her reflection. Being less than five feet tall, she had to stand on tiptoe to get a quick look at her head and shoulders. Her blue rinse and snug perm were old-fashioned in these days of highlights and natural cuts, but they suited her idea of a respectable appearance. She nodded at herself and then listened again for the man of the house.

  ‘Christopher, are you there?’ she stage-whispered up the stairs. She herself, hated being woken up too quickly and she extended that consideration to other people. She thought that maybe he would appreciate a gentle rousing from sleep, rather than a sudden shocking awakening. The silence was intense and she began to feel the first shivers of concern. He had specifically said he wouldn’t go out until she got there so that they could talk about the carpet, and so that he could give her a hand moving the armchairs. A long-case clock at the bottom of the stairs next to her chimed nine-fifteen and her heart nearly stopped.

  ‘Bloody, sodding thing,’ Mrs Hayward muttered to herself with an inward breath, her nerves allowing her to use vocabulary she would never normally give voice to. With her hand on her chest to coax her heart back to something like its normal rate, she stood for a few moments.

  Telling herself to be sensible, she began to climb the stairs, checking for dust on the banister as she went. She took her responsibilities as a cleaner seriously. This was in spite of the fact that she didn’t regard herself as a professional cleaner, not as such. She would never, in a million years, have contemplated signing up with one of these cleaning agencies, like Happy House or Mrs Mop, who went in every week, carrying their vacuum cleaners with them.

  She was halfway up the stairs by now and she paused.

  ‘Christopher? Are you all right? It’s gone nine, you know,’ she said. It was as much to quell her nerves as to get an answer. Total silence enveloped the cottage; she had never experienced this before. Always there had been bustle and noise: maybe a radio or the television, the sound of the toaster popping, or even just the pages of a newspaper being turned. This heavy, intense silence was new and uncomfortable.

  At the top of the stairs she turned left along the picture-lined corridor. She no longer noticed the paintings. But the gilt-framed awards he displayed there always impressed her. Janson had been an art director in the magazine industry for most of his working life.

  Mrs Hayward knocked on his bedroom door. No reply. She went in and saw Janson was still tucked up in bed, but she could tell immediately something was wrong. He was as white as chalk. She had no tray to drop – but her hands flew up anyway and she screamed.

  Chapter 3

  Monday, May 6, Larkshall Lane, Croydon, 9.20AM

  Lynne Parker closed the front door behind her and breathed a sigh of relief. She had the house to herself for the first time in more than forty-eight hours. Her husband was up in London, where he worked at New Scotland Yard, and both the boys had been safely dropped off at school.

  She adored all three of them, but right now she didn’t miss them one little bit. She had a list of things to do, a mile long, but for the moment she savoured the peace and quiet. Not only did she have time to sigh, but also she could actually hear herself do it.

  Monday, May 6, Angel Cottage, Sewel Mill, 9.30AM

  By the time Dr Clive Marks arrived, Mrs Hayward had calmed herself down surprisingly well. She was in the kitchen, making tea. Ten minutes later, when he came back downstairs and found her with the pot brewed and the cups out ready, they sat for a few seconds, sipping in silence.

  ‘Poor chap, he must’ve popped off in his sleep. Then again, I wouldn’t have expected it,’ sighed Marks, thoughtfully. ‘After all, he was in remarkably sound health.’

  Mrs Hayward had started to tremble again and had to put her cup down. Marks prescribed her a mild sedative and told her to pick it up at the chemist, then go home and rest.

  ‘I can’t possibly do that,’ she snapped, irritation clearly showing. ‘I have work to do around the village, people will be expecting me.’

  ‘Well, at least take it easy, you’ve had quite a shock, no point killing yourself…’ Realising what he had said, he allowed the sentence to tail off. ‘Well,’ he added, apologetically, ‘you know what I mean.’

  ‘Don’t you go worrying about me, Dr Marks,’ she answered, pushing her chair back from the table and carrying her cup across to the sink. No rush to wash it up now. ‘I’ll be fine once I’ve gathered my wits.’ Mrs Hayward grabbed her short beige mac from the hall and hurriedly collected the rest of her belongings. She left by the back door.

  Upset by what had happened, she was, and sorry for poor old Mr Janson, yes genuinely, but neither of those emotions outweighed her excitement. She could barely stop herself from running, but had to make do with a brisk walk. She relished the fact that nobody else could have the news before she parted with it. She was, after all, the one who had experienced it first-hand.

  She waved to Gloria Tufnell, who was watering plants in the window box at the front of her shop in the high street. She didn’t stop to chat.

  She was still working out her itinerary for the rest of the morning when she got to Mrs Newbould’s door. Emily Newbould was obviously the first person to call on. As Anna Janson’s closest friend in Sewel Mill, she could be relied on for an enjoyable exchange of views on the subject. Mrs Hayward tried to get her smile under control and replace it with a more respectable expression of grief. It wasn’t easy.

  Monday, May 6, Brentwood Mansions, 9.40AM

  Kate Brown looked in on Emma before she left. Being the boss meant that Kate could choose her hours. And us creative types don’t tend to get moving too early in the day do we? That wouldn’t be coo-wal, would it? Kate had a healthy sense of humour about the world she lived and worked in. Her office was only down the road in Saint Christopher’s Place anyway. It was two minutes away, if you walked fast, which Kate did.

  Both type-A people, she and Emma were old friends from college days, and when she had said, ‘Stay as long as you like,’ that was exactly what she’d meant. Kate was rich, meaning seriously rich. So much so that she didn’t think about how much she had and whether or not she could afford it.

  She wasn’t dizzy though, far from it. She just knew she was okay financially and had never known anything else. The family was old money, her father owned large tracts of forest in north Wales, mainly for paper production, and this had been left to his father and his before him. Not being prolific breeders, but bearing enough children to carry on the line, the Brown family was well-provisioned.

  She looked down at her friend. Emma seemed to be sleep
ing peacefully enough now, but she had been restless in the night. Kate had heard her pacing around a little before she herself dropped off.

  She was looking forward to her day at work, as she always did, but she would’ve much preferred to wait for Emma to wake up so that they could have a good chat. She had been reluctant to press her friend too much the night before for an explanation of why she’d needed somewhere to stay at such relatively short notice. She was just delighted to have her around and happy to provide a refuge in a time of trouble.

  They’d enjoyed an excellent meal, not to mention significantly more than their allotted one unit per night of wine. This was turning the clock back big-time; this was going to be fun.

  Monday, May 6, Angel Cottage, Sewel Mill, 9.45AM

  Dr Marks went back up to Janson’s bedroom. Something was nagging at the back of his mind. Something wasn’t right. He pulled the duvet from Janson’s face. The angles were all wrong; the head position just didn’t seem to sit right. Granted, this was the head of a corpse and you would expect it to be in a relaxed position. However, this was all wrong, relaxed but not relaxed fully.

  Marks held Janson’s head with both hands and moved it gently, and then he felt what he had half-suspected – a click. The realisation hit him almost like a punch in the stomach: a man with a broken neck doesn’t put himself to bed.

  By mid-morning, the local police were joined by a couple of specialists. Commander Paul Saxon and DS Guy Parker from New Scotland Yard.

  The local police had been on the scene quickly bearing in mind there was no police station in the village. The local officers had in fact come up from Brighton this morning. Sewel Mill had lost its police presence ten years ago and Brighton was the nearest big centre that could offer assistance when a crime was committed, as it clearly had been here.

  Introducing themselves to the local officers, Saxon mentioned that he himself lived on their patch, in Brighton, and had just reached the office in London when the call came to return to Sussex. He left them to continue their routine.